Guess who's leading the Masters

AUGUSTA, Ga. — If Jordan Spieth slips on the green jacket again come Sunday night, he'll look back on a slippery, left-breaking five-foot par putt on Hole 12 as the springboard to a second straight Masters championship.

The defending champ had it rolling Thursday, wrapping up the front nine in a tidy 3-under, birded the tenth and headed for Amen Corner. At the par-3 12th, Spieth flew his drive just over the green, then left his putt from the fringe five feet short of the hole.

To keep a bogey-free round rolling Spieth needed to sink the downhill breaker. He did, pumped his fist and promptly marched to the 13th hole where he poured in another birdie to put him at 5-under.

On 16 he drained another par-saving putt, this one from 15 feet. A birdie at 18 put him at 6-under 66, two strokes clear of the field.

"Certainly made a lot of putts today," he said. "If I can kind of straighten things out with the iron play, hopefully we'll be in business.  But, yeah, I am extremely pleased with that round today.  I felt like we stole a few."

Spieth has now led five straight rounds at Augusta.

A year ago, Spieth fired an 8-under 64 in his opening round en route to a wire-to-wire victory. He called this round better than his first last year. Wherever it stands, going 6-under wasn't easy.

Despite beautiful skies, the wind whipped up as the afternoon wore on, and Spieth was far from perfect. He hit only 12 greens in regulation and 11 fairways. If not for the putter – he had just 25 putts – he'd be in the middle of a logjam of golfers at 3- and 2-under.

"Got a lot out of the round with what I felt like was kind of average‑ish ball‑striking," Spieth said. "Just scored the ball extremely well, which is something I've been struggling with this season."

There has been some criticism of Spieth's game of late, which the 22-year-old doesn't quite understand. He won in January, but hasn't broken the top 10 in his last six tournaments. He has, however, finished in the top 20 in five of those events and eight of his last nine.

"Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out why people think I've been struggling," Spieth lamented Thursday. "We've finished in the top 20 eight out of the last nine events. What am I supposed to do?

"... I think that everything that we do is building up around the major championships, and so we are trying to peak this week. We've done as good a job or better at this point than we did last year up until now. We try and get everything obviously firing to where I don't have to think about much this week and just play the golf course."